Emirates

The future of Airbus A380, the flagship model of the plane manufacturer from Europe hangs in balance. The only two factors justifying the jumbo are the need for transporting more people out of busy slot constrained airports such as Beijing and Heathrow and the Middle East airline giant, Emirates. The A380 super jumbo is lagging in sales and yet to make a profit for Airbus, hence the frame maker is not very keen on bringing in the neo version of the plane which has long been demanded by Emirates, the biggest customer of the aircraft with 140 of those birds on order. The airline has repeatedly said that it needs more of these jumbo to satisfy its need of moving more people around the world…

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Oman Air is name that won’t be familiar to many of the travelers given that they aren’t in the league of the big Middle East 3 cousins namely Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways. But the airline has started flexing its muscles to show that it means serious business. As part of this, the airline has bought the coveted landing slot at London Heathrow for $75million from Air France-KLM, this beats the previous record of $60million deal done between American Airlines which bought the slot from Scandinavian carrier SAS. Conclusion: Landing slots at the London Heathrow have become prized commodities with the early morning slots commanding the most premium with airlines targetting premium customers. The Middle east airlines have all been snapping up all available slots…

Emirates has been expanding at break neck speed in every possible nook and corner of the world. With vast amounts of easy funding available, the airline is definitely not short on cash but sometimes it’s those small policy quirks that can cause some issues. Lately Emirates has been pushing its staff to wear flag pins based on the nationalities stated in their passports. This seems to be a move to highlight the internationalization within the airline which can be seen as a great public relations move but they forget that it can equally be a touchy subject also for many people. Case in point here is the Hong Kong based staff of the airline who were mandated to wear China flag pins but were later…

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In this race to run the longest flight in the world everyone wants to score the brownie points. Qatar Airways has jumped into the fray now and wants to run the world’s longest flight. As per the The Telegraph’s report, the airlines intends to run the flight from Doha to Auckland which would be a 9,032 mile flight beating the current record holder Dallas-Sydney flight which is a cool 8578 miles and takes 17hrs. Now I know you would say that Emirates is planning to launch Dubai-Panama route which is planned to begin service from mid-March 2016 but even that flight at 8588 miles and 17.5hrs of flight time will not be able to beat this planed route. In the past running such long route…

Bloomberg ran an interesting article about how the current regulations mandating 12% more separation between the Airbus A380 and other planes to avoid the wake turbulence generated by the A380 is inhibiting Dubai airport to maximize the benefits of the super-jumbo by increasing the number of flights it can land or take off from the airport. There are no clear cut answers as to whether the A380 is really making the airlines help carry more passengers in totality from an airport. The article has interesting comparison between the separation required between the Boeing 777s which are the other mainstay of Dubai’s flagship carrier, Emirates and the Boeing 747 jumbos and how that fares against the A380. The comparison seems true at face value but to quantify…

Reuters is reporting that Rolls Royce has bagged an order worth $9.2 billion at list prices to supply 50 of its Trent engines for the Airbus A380 airplanes ordered by Emirates. This is in stark departure from the Engine Alliance engines that the existing orders of Emirates A380s are coming with. The airline is the biggest buyer of these planes with almost 140 of them on order and 60 of them already in service. The first A380 plane with the Rolls Royce engines would start only in 2016 but still this news is important. It is rare for an airline to switch engine supplier’s midway of such a big order as typically airlines would stick to one engine supplier to make sure consistency and the…

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Qantas seems to be heading more deeper into its downward spiral which was clearly on display at its press meeting today. The airline intends to eliminate 15 percent of its workforce, slashing spending and selling gas-guzzling older planes after stiff competition at home and overseas pushed the Australian flag carrier deep into the red in the first half. Qantas plans to cut costs by A$2 billion over the next three years, among cost-cutting measures, Joyce said Qantas would defer receipt of the final three Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets it ordered for budget arm Jetstar, as well as the eight remaining Airbus A380s it has on order. The moves are part of a plan to either defer or sell a total of 50 aircraft.The airline has…

Knowing things beforehand with a quick Google search is a boon for someone like me. I must admit that at airports at train stations I’m always the one who is hurrying around to make it for the flight and with ever increasing security checks things are only getting tighter. I am not the types that likes to come early to the airports for me the biggest enjoyments is the time in the air where I get to have my piece with no phones ringing (although that may be changing soon). So for me I always dreamt of a way whereby I could have a feel of the places beforehand just in order to save some time spent dashing around or maybe looking for the shop…

Hong Kong Airlines has placed an order for 10 Airbus A380s with Airbus which makes the order worth $3.8 billion worth at list prices. Airbus plans to start the delivery to the airlines from 2015 onwards. While the Hong Kong Airlines order still hasn’t appeared in Airbus’s order and delivery figures on the Internet, It will bring Airbus’s order tally for A380s to 27 won last year, when the manufacturer also signed contracts with Japan’s Skymark Airlines and South Korea’s Asiana Airlines Inc. for six each, and a further five for Qatar Airways Ltd. further strengthening its position in superjumbo market and also helping it overcome the recent bad press it has had to face due to a string of issues with the A380’s that belong to…

Emirates has recently announced plans of providing in-flight internet on-board its superjumbo fleet of 11 of the 19 Airbus A380s already in service starting mid-2012. All future Emirates A380s will be rolled out pre-fitted with wireless Internet. Passengers will be able to connect their smartphone, tablet or laptop to wireless hotspots dotted around the superjumbo and tap into in-flight Internet service provided by OnAir, with prices ranging from US$7.50 to US$25. The $7.50 plan, which will be available only to mobile device users will come with a 5MB data limit and is targeted for users looking for light surfing, checking emails and other social network activities, as Emirates puts it ” The US $7.50 package should be sufficient for the average Blackberry user to stay connected all the way from Dubai to Paris…